Backup > Schedule Volumes

Specify a recurring schedule to backup volumes for the selected machine IDs. You may backup individual drive letters (partitions) or entire disk drives. To insure recovery from complete disk failure, you should backup entire disk drives.  Only by backing up entire disks will you capture hidden recover partitions that may have been installed by your PC system vendor.

Full backups take significant time to complete compared with incremental or differential backups. To save time and disk space, schedule full backups to run less frequently than incremental backups. Typically full backups are scheduled once per week or once per month, while incremental backups run daily. All files associated with the full backup and all incremental backups are saved together in a full backup set. You may save any number of full backup sets you wish.

The system saves each full backup set in its own folder. The backup system saves backup images in the path specified in Image Location. Inside the volume path specified in Image Location, backup data gets saved in the following directory structure:

Image Location Path

testbox.workstations

FldrBackup

VolBackup

20060621 18.13.01

testbox.workstations2.tib

testbox.workstations3.tib

testbox.workstations4.tib

testbox.workstations.tib

20060628 18.12.55

testbox.workstations2.tib

testbox.workstations3.tib

testbox.workstations4.tib

testbox.workstations.tib

Schedule

Click Schedule to set all volume backup parameters assigned to selected machine IDs. The full backup always runs first after clicking Schedule. To run a new full backup, click Schedule. Clicking Schedule creates a new full backup set.

NOTE: Backups may consume significant network bandwidth when pushing file to the network file store. To prevent congesting the network during normal business hours, schedule backups to run at off hours.

Backup Now

Task a new incremental or differential backup to run immediately. If a full backup does not already exist, the system creates a full backup image.

NOTE: The backup logs always list an incremental or differential backup after clicking Backup Now, even if a full backup image is created.

Incremental

Incremental backups capture all the changes to the target system since the last incremental backup. Restoring from an incremental backup requires all previous incremental image file plus the original full backup. Do not remove files from the full backup set directory.

WARNING: Incremental backups detect changes at the sector level. If you defragment your hard disk, a large number of disk sectors will move and appear to change. This results in a large incremental backup file. This is perfectly normal for a sector level backup system.

Differential

Differential backups capture all the changes to the target system since the last full backup. To save disk space, only the latest differential backup image is saved with each full backup set. Select differential backups to minimize backup image storage requirements.

Full backup every

Select a recurring interval to run the full backup. For example, once per month or once every 3 months.

Save the last N full backup set

Specify the number of full backup sets to keep here. Starting a new full backup, creates a new full backup set. So, entering 3 here will maintain the current full backup, plus that last two full backup sets (full backup plus all incrementals or the differential).

Verify Backup

You may optionally verify each backup image immediately after each full, incremental, or differential backup completes. Verify takes the same amount of time as the original backup to complete. Only verify in situations where you question the integrity of the network connection to the image location. You do not generally need to use this option.  Use the Verify Images function to spot check backup images any time.

Disks

Disk number to backup. Backup an entire disk to insure any hidden partitions that  may have been installed by your PC vendor are also backed up. These hidden partitions may be required to boot your system in the event of a restore.

Partitions

The system lists each available local hard disk for each machine. To include any or all of these drives in the volume backup, check the desired drive letter.